Thomas Gainsborough, Self-portrait of the artist
sketching, a pencil drawing

England, about AD 1754-57

Thomas Gainsborough sometimes said that while painting portraits
was his profession, landscape painting was his pleasure. In this
unique self-portrait he has combined both features of his art.
Gainsborough has chosen to depict himself seated informally on the
ground and sketching directly from nature, which is telling
of his close personal affinity with the landscape.

In the portrait, Gainsborough has shown himself as a
recently-established young artist. He wears a three-cornered hat,
long coat, dark breeches, white stockings and smart buckled
shoes.

Like his portraits of this period, described by an early
biographer as 'truly drawn, perfectly like, but stiffly painted',
the figure of the artist is awkward. This is partly because the
figure was first drawn on a separate piece of paper. Gainsborough
then cut out his figure and laid it down on the landscape
background. The outline of one piece of paper over another is
clearly visible.

Gainsborough is shown here drawing with his left hand, although
we know that he was right-handed. This indicates that like most
self-portraits, this one was made with the use of a mirror.

The British Museum holds the richest collection in existence of
Gainsborough's drawings and purchased this, his only known
self-portrait drawing, on the bicentenary of Gainsborough's death
in 1988.